The best of recent TV has been Endeavour a prequel to Morse and Lewis featuring the young Morse as a Detective police constable moving from the Met to Oxford following his good work in the pilot which was shown two years or more ago and before the most recent series of Lewis which has come to an end.
I had planned to do a piece of the last series of Lewis but other events overtook me There is just opportunity to record again that after a hesitant start and uncertainty on my part I thought Kevin Whalley did an excellent and credible as the Detective Inspector together with his university educated priest in the making sergeant. The series ends with Kevin retiring from the force and his sergeant decides against putting in for the post and leaving he force as well.
I thought the first of a four two hours programmes in this first series of Endeavour was good but the second shown last Sunday 21st April was a brilliant portrayal of a young man in the process of becoming Morse senior. He possessed the creative intellect to see what others cannot and the drive and ambition of youth to go it alone, question authority and follow up his intuition. He is yet to acquire the experience and skills usually honed from having undertaken slow methodical policing as well as acquiring a detailed knowledge of the law,
Shaun Evans plays the Young Morse, the young man who failed to complete his Oxford degree but who maintains links singing in a University Choral group. His champion is Detective Inspector Fred Thursday played by Roger Allam who sees the potential in Morse and in the first episode uses him as a drive assistant much to the anger of the Sergeant usually allocated the task and who understandably is resentful and a thorn in his side. Some one else who is not a fan of young Morse is Chief Super Reginald Bright with another excellent characterization by Anton Lesser. The daughter of John Abigail Thaw plays the editor of the Oxford Mail Dorothea Frazil.
In both the openers the 2013 series two deaths which appear unconnected form the basis of the detective mysteries. A secretarial student dies and a doctor is shot while in an area where his presence is unexplained. The initial trail leads to a family where its head is a scientist who assisted in the creation of the Atom bomb in the USA and is now an Oxford Don with echoes of Strangers and Brothers and a recent Foyle episode. He receives threatening letters and there is anti nuclear protests with the credits both of which are red herrings in relation to solving the deaths.
His daughter is married to the GP who is killed and she cares for the child of her younger sister, portrayed as an unstable young women who has been placed by the family in an expensive care institution before being allowed to leave and move to London. Later it is revealed that the doctor befriended the sister and is the father of the child which he has financially supported giving the mother a 10 shilling postal order each week which she cashes at a local post office paying in half a crown to a saving’s account for the son.
Morse is attracted to the girl who offers herself as a means of gaining his attention and company but he behaves in a professional way but their bonding as friends means that he forgets to undertake a record check which shows that she has committed a crime of violence when in the care unit. Morse is put back on general duties by the Chief Superintendent and the girl charged and kept in custody despite Morse protesting her innocence. This is confirmed while in custody as a Vicar whose bicycle was discovered at the scene of the Doctor’s murder is also murdered. The vicar like Morse is an expert on crosswords and it is only late on that Morse works out the clue left in the form of the numbers of form hymns left on display for the next service.
I can no longer remember the details the full details of the plot but the guilty man is the father who runs the post office, protecting his son who frustrated and bored with his expected life assistant is father after the death of his mother has been earning an income selling drugs obtained from the GP. The young man has supplied the secretarial student not knowing that she had a medical condition where the combination led to her premature death. The vicar is killed because he comes in on the scene where the post master is killing the GP
Morse also discovers that the scientist has accepted a post in the USA taking his widowed daughter and the grandson with them. Morse uses his newly acquired knowledge of the law to prevent the child being taken out of the country and in the final scene he sees off the girl reunited with her child on a coach to London thus commencing his career tendency to fight for the underdog and take an unconventional approach. The episode is called Girl
The first two deaths in the second episodes Fugue only appear connected because of references to the last words of different operas which Morse discovers. However early on I worked out who the villain was because of the similarity to another a story vaguely remembered. In that story a patient assumes the identity of a psychiatrist who he has killed. In this programme a psychiatrist comes forward to offer his assistance and who suggests someone else, someone who does not exist, a former patient who he suggests could be the killer.
It is however the editor of the local newspaper who remembers the case of a 15 year old boy who murdered his mother in a horrific way because of a phrase used at the time and then repeated in the present cycle of crimes which includes four of five planned murders and where the killer kidnaps a child to keep the authorities occupied while he carries out her fourth. The memory of the editor is a name and a residential location which unmasks the killer and his adopted identity,
he then kidnaps the sister of a talented but emotionally unstable concert pianists as another diversion so he can trap the intended victim - Inspector Thursday as a stand in for the Detective Inspector responsible for his previous capture and imprisonment. because of the opera connections. The others killed were witnesses and the judge.
Morse is brought back from general duties to assist and during the episode he receives a surface tummy flesh wound and prevents the killing of Thursday although in fairness it is Thursday whose fearless action prevents his own death.
Young Morse is given the opportunity of meeting Thursday wife, young adult son and daughter when he collapses from exhaustion. The episode is full of glorious music from grand opera and Morse is shown to have vinyl copies of the music plus the libretto’s from boxed editions. Albeit a single man in a well paid job I am nevertheless surprise that he was able to afford what would have been expensive items, The photography of Oxford at sun rise and sun set was also gorgeous. Despite his heroics and cleverness he is returned once more to general policing duties.
There has been so much great television over past months that I have struggled where to begin but the best single programme has been Our Girl first broadcast a month ago 24 March 2013 with an outstanding performance by Lacey Turner as the young Eastender good time loser, the eldest of a struggling large family with an out of work family in a estate flat who finds in the army a surrogate family. Contrary to some critics I thought depiction of training realistic and unlikely to lead to a increase in recruitment for the film proved that determination and grit is not sufficient to make a career in the modern army. True it offers an opportunity to those who have failed at school or find getting a job which satisfies difficult to impossible but without having qualities which need to brought out the majority of young people will not make the combination of quick thinking, common sense, courage, and physical ability required.
Staying up late one evening I came across yet another Italian cops and robbers series Inspector Nardone, six stories and 12 episodes over all became must see viewing. The story is set in Milan just after the end of the second World War and features the Inspector Nardone who has moved to the north from the South with a very traditional southern approach to policing, to woman and life generally, but he also is prepared to adapt to the demands placed by the development of a ruthless criminal gang and to undertake the job in hand regardless of the status, wealth and power of those involved. In this respect he can be described as a forerunner of Inspector Montalbano and the Inspector in Romanzo Criminate. He brings together the best talented young men and operates in a creative but also professional way.
Early on like the two other Inspectors he forms a relationship with an influential woman who provides sexual favours to those who can afford her “High Maintenance” lifestyle although in this stance his relationship remains professional and it is another member of the team he assembled who becomes infatuated and then obsessed, despite the fact that she marries a wealthy older man who gives her a night club to manage.
Nardone quickly establishes a relationship with the manger of a firm and finds her wish for individualism difficult to cope with but they marry and have a child together with the next hurdle when as the child grows up his wife takes a job in a car selling firm. As with the other two series mentioned this programme combines the tacking of individual crimes with the development of relationships within the team and their relationships with others.
One of the relationships is between Nardone and a journalist photographer with both continuing to assist each other of the subsequent decade. The relationship is not corrupt but there are breaches of ethical standards which should not be tolerated in this post Leveson era.
As with Romanzo Criminale the youngish Inspector has an elder assistant whose experiences becomes pivotal when he is gunned down into a coma by the young villain whose capture becomes the focus of the series. Because of the success in bringing down a leading citizen friend of the local police Chief, Nardone successful team is broken up through promotions to other parts of Italy. Each has a significant story to tell. One is obsessed with studying to become a lawyer and also the search for a Fascist who betrayed his family and the love for daughter of landlady.
The individual eventually tracks down the mother of the fascist who has left the country and when later the man returns the police officer relies that killing him makes him no different and resorts to using the law. The girl becomes pregnant by a boyfriend and the police officer decides to accept the young woman and child and hen is further disappointment when child’s father returns and girl goes off again. However she returns and they marry and he passes the exams to become a magistrate
Another a former fascist has become an excellent driver a is provided with vehicles which can out chase those acquired by the criminals. I am not sure if it he or the other young member of the team ( one of whom becomes the forensic specialist and is engaged to be married) who also becomes obsessed by the former prostitute. He does not go ahead with the marriage despite beginning to sleep with the young woman and I think it is he who eventually married the other woman and who abandons her high maintenance lifestyle for a meaningful relationship.
All three now established officers in their thirties return to Milan and reform as a group after their elder colleague appears at deaths door. The man is single having decided not to marry a young woman because of the demands of his work when younger. It emerges that although the woman married and had a child the girl is his and the woman, never stopped her original love something which the man she married understood and accepted. The woman has now died but the girl reappears and having found her true father is horrified when he decides that he must return to duty as part of the original successful team. She cannot cope with this and goes off and when he goes in search of her she cannot be found. It is then revealed that she has gone off to train as a police woman. Another story line which I believe was later taken up in the Swedish series of Wallander in relation to his daughter in TV version..
There are many twists and turns including a real; threat to the ife of Nardone before the team are able to capture the villain who has caused so much harm to the city. The series ends on this high note and I presume was not resurrected and as a consequence I for one felt satisfied with a sense of completeness and good feeling rounded off but which had otherwise been what I felt a very realistic portrayal of the times and what policing would have been like.
Our girl trains as a medical assistant and after qualifying goes out to Afghanistan. Her father rejects her after she turns down the offer of marriage from someone who an provide him with fresh start employment after the accident which led to his unemployment and general hostility to the
world. Her former female friends also reject when she is not prepared to slip back into her former ways of heavy drinking and casual sex. She overcomes the disappointment when her parents fail to attend the passing out parade after basic training although her mother finds a way of having a brief meeting before the girl goes overseas. The film ends with the return of a coffin with military honours and flowers made out into Our Girl. It is not our girl in question where both parents are relieved and proud when she returns home.
The critic who reported this as a recruiting film for the army must have been watching a different edition. A memorable acting performance and a memorable film.
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